motions was a treacherous desertion. Calvaert, too, who had so long
haunted the king like his perpetual shadow, and who had believed him--at
least so far as the Netherlands were concerned--to be almost without
guile, had been destined after all to a rude awakening. Sick and
suffering, he did not cease, so long as life was in him, to warn the
States-General of the dangers impending over them from the secret
negotiations which their royal ally was doing his best to conceal from
them, and as to which he had for a time succeeded so dexterously in
hoodwinking their envoy himself. But the honest and energetic agent of
the republic did not live to see the consummation of these manoeuvres of
Henry and the pope. He died in Paris during the month of June of this
year.

Certainly the efforts of Spanish and Papal diplomacy had not been
unsuccessful in bringing about a dissolution of the bonds of amity by
which the three powers seemed so lately to be drawing themselves very
closely together. The republic and Henry IV. were now on a most
uncomfortable footing towards each other. On the other hand, the queen
was in a very ill humour with the States and very angry with Henry.
Especially the persistent manner in which the Hollanders carried on trade
with Spain and were at the same time making fortunes for themselves and
feeding the enemy, while Englishmen, on pain of death, were debarred from
participation in such traffic, excited great and general indignation in
England. In vain was it represented that this trade, if prohibited to the
commonwealth would fall into the hands of neutral powers, and that Spain
would derive her supplies from the Baltic and other regions as regularly
as ever, while the republic, whose whole life was in her foreign
commerce, would not only become incapable of carrying on the war but
would perish of inanition. The English statesmen threatened to declare
all such trade contraband, and vessels engaging in it lawful prize to
English cruisers.

Burghley declared, with much excitement, to Canon, that he, as well as
all the council, considered the conduct of the Hollanders so
unjustifiable as to make them regret that their princess had ever
embarked with a State which chose to aid its own enemies in the
destruction of itself and its allies. Such conduct was so monstrous that
those who were told of it would hardly believe it.

The Dutch envoy observed that there were thirty thousand sailors engaged
in this trade,